Castuserraticus

The main change to the river from the flood was loss of mobile, midstream gravel bars. The high flow carried the gravel down to manmade collection points (flow restriction) above the weirs. Since the Bow is entirely dam controlled, no new gravel can enter the system from upstream to replenish the bars. The only source of gravel, other than the Highwood, is cannibalizing the banks. The river is permanently wider and shallower with a fixed, boulder streambed instead of a mobile gravel bed. This could result in more mud deposited in some areas.Bug habitat changed.

Accurate at a high level. Natural gas royalties are also calculated from individual well rates and market prices. Royalties are just part of the "government take" from the industry. Regulatory compliance is a growth industry in Alberta and has been for decades. Industry is required to pay the expenses of organizations trying to shut the whole industry down ("consult with"). Workers pay income tax. Municipal districts and counties charge property taxes for every piece of equipment in their areas. Towns and cities charge business taxes. Provincial and federal governments tax operating profits. GST is charged on equipment and services. Sealed bid sales of crown mineral leases generates significant funds.

I replace the chain and cogset on my winter and road bikes pretty well every year. I equate the it to changing the oil in your vehicle. It's easy, necessary maintenance and can make a bike feel like new. One of my road bikes is overdue and will be done before winter - got 2 yrs out of that cogset. Using a chain measuring tool to gauge stretch, regularly wiping grease and grit off the chain, and keeping it lightly oiled will help the chain and cogset last longer. I ride a few thousand km/yr.

You should be able to remove the floor slab without disturbing the foundation. They are not generally poured together. The foundation will predate the slab. A cracked foundation may be another matter if it's moved too much.

http://homestars.com/ab/calgary Had great results with a couple different contractors through this.

The situation will change when the reservoirs completely fill with sediment and the dams are torn out. Engineers have likely done the calculations. The Elbow River adds to the Weaselhead delta and lake bottom sediment every year and the Glenmore reservoir gets smaller. It will be decades. I've read notes about several old reservoirs in the US that filled and the dams were then destroyed. Nothing can economically change the situation. It will be interesting to see how the fishery changes.

Life interferes with being able to spend a lot of time on the river. So, my observations are limited to 4 outings at 4 different sites. I think we're going to see that last year's flood changes the river for many years. The finer gravel is gone - blown downstream. Coarser cobble to boulder gravel dominates the sections I fished. Most of the bottom structure, bars, and small channels that provided the desirable historic structures and current breaks were there because of bedforms created by finer gravel bars - longitudinal (parallel to current) and transverse (across current). There are likely internet resources to research for those who want more info. Gravel bars are mobile bedforms. The upstream side is gradual and erosional and the downstream is steeper and depositional. During normal high flow events bars will migrate down stream relative to the strength of the flow. Some bars will remain stable for years - until an event larger than the one that created them mobilizes the gravel again. This is the nature of a freestone river. In their natural state they can be very poor fish habitat. The James River and many sections of the Elbow have highly mobile channels in relatively wider sections of their valleys. The Bow is no longer a true freestone river. The upstream dams have eliminated the influx of new gravel. If you could view an unconfined Alberta freestone river over time, you would see an amazing process. Highly angular blocks enter the headwaters and work slowly downstream, getting rolled, banged, and broken -getting smaller and losing their angularity. As the flow gradient drops and the channel widens, the gravel becomes organized into bedforms. Over many years, you would be able to watch individual gravel bars migrate downstream in a steady parade - forming, dissipating, and re-forming. As long as there is a source of new rocks entering the headwaters. This is one reason why the Bow at Canmore is poorer habitat - relatively unstable environment. Geologists study these processes on a small scale in man made flow flumes. Flowing water is fantastic at sorting. The highest energy flows can move house size blocks a few centimeters to meters by undercutting them. River gradients in Alberta decrease away from the mountains. The river flow will roll rocks along the bottom until the velocity drops below a critical level. Fine mud drops out of suspension in only the quietest eddies and back waters. The flood's flow through the Policeman's Flats area blasted away the vast majority of the finer gravel and left a boulder field. A friend reported to me there are extensive longitudinal gravel bars above Carseland. The artificial weir created a small area of decreased gradient and flow. The issue I see is, there is no source of fine gravel from upstream to rebuild the in-stream structure. The Highwood is the only mountain sourced tributary that will be able to contribute new gravel. The only other source of finer gravel is local (intra-basinal) - cannibalizing the banks. This makes the river wider and shallower. The river bed is now built of boulders. There are still pockets along the bank but there doesn't seem to be mid stream structure. The finer gravel bars tend to have relatively steep downstream sides making for nice pockets. The boulder fields are more sheet like. I understand the processes and believe I see consequences. Can others confirm the observations? is there some reduction in fishing quality?

Prior to construction of the Bearspaw and other Dams, I understand the river could get very low during the summer.

Beautiful shots. Some interesting compositions.

Done right, you'll see the solder pull up into the joint. Inside and outisde (male and female) of pipes have to be clean - emory paper to get all oxidation off. Flux on inside and outside. Any slow drip of water will prevent the solder from bonding. At the right temperature, the flux will start to smoke/vaporize and the solder will melt and pull into the joint.

You're fortunate Rick - only 2 hobbies. Training for a new interest in endurance cycling interfered with both golf and fishing this year. At the Kootenay fondo, the start was at St. Eugene Golf Resort and I was distracted a bit when we rode across the St. Marys river and one of the rest stations was beside the Bull River. +9 in the first 2 holes yesterday shows how far the golf skill dropped.

I'll miss most of it. Riding the Kimberley Gran Fondo this weekend. I expect to average about 25km/h. The top riders in this will likely average over 40 - similar to that of pro riders. This means the leaders will have been resting for over 2 hrs before I finish.

People who are afraid to seek professional help in parenting can be doomed to make the same mistakes over and over again. That's why every successful professional athlete or business person has coaches/advisors on the payroll. Nobody inside a volatile relationship can realistically evaluate that relationship. Emotion clouds judgement.

Crazy's house in Bowness was hit with 5' of water in the basement. Some friends and random volunteer strangers helped carry everything out yesterday. Promised one of them a guided float down the Bow as a thanx. His fly tying materials took a beating but he might have had too much stuff anyway. There were more volunteers available than there was room to put them. Random acts of kindness were everywhere. Some pretty girls walked by giving out home made cookies. Others were bringing around coolers with snacks and drinks. People were getting very dirty helping out. Ray and his wife were able to concentrate on documenting the damage with pictures and begin the laborious sorting process.

I switched to barbless after pinning my net, vest, and shirt to my back one windy day with a pair of nymphs. Fortunately, they popped out pretty easily but I knew it could've been much worse. It's when my sign-on name was created and I really started working on casting.

Beautiful - now go out and beat the hell out of it against some rocks.

I like the rubber core football shaped ones. Easy to put on, easy to move, and cause no issues with casts but sometimes pop off if I don't have enough line wraps around the rubber core. I use small-medium sized and add or subtract to get proper drift. Tried Thingambobber but found it had too much air resistance for longer casts causing the loop to open up creating more resistance. Also seemed to cause line twist. Don't like the corkie and toothpick setups because they have to be dismantled if I want to switch to dryfly. Sometimes I nymph with a tapered leader to make an easy switch. I found the yarn-like foam strip indicators with rubber O-ring caused a lot of line spin in the air which then leads to tangles. I like Don's yarn indicators for light duty work but they are higher maintenance than the football floats since they do sink over time.

Just WOW!

Sitting in the ski jump bowl doing the wave and chanting on the "tastes great" side vs the "less filling" side while waiting for the wind to calm down. Some kids (probes) were sent down to check whether the winds were safe. Every one of them jumped further than Eddy the Eagle - he essentially fell off the end of the ramp. Standing inside the kreisel turn during the bobsleigh - only heard the Germans and other good teams rumble by. The Mexicans and Jamaicans went around the turn sideways. Yes - there was a Mexican bobsleigh team. Watched the last ever Soviet hockey team in a nothing game. Still have a USSR hockey pin. I got real lucky on tickets.

Hull options - always a trade-off of hull speed vs maneuverability. A slim touring kayak would be a reasonable choice for getting upstream for walk and wades but would not be maneuverable. Short boats push water more than cut through it and are a bear to move upstream. Regardless, you should get some experience/instruction on moving water or you'll be looking at the bottom after trying to cross the first eddy line. The lower centre of gravity of a kayak makes it more stable than a canoe. A canoe needs considerable beam width to get stability which means less hull speed. I taught whitewater kayaking for a few years, dabbled with C1, and have ocean kayaked and canoed. I would not recommend trying to fish the Bow from a moving one. I tried to from my one of my whitewater boats on stillwater but any wind caused me to drift more than I wanted. Kayak fisherman tend to anchor. I used to have an 18' canoe and drifted the bow with it a few times. It was not great. Jumping from spot to spot was OK. It was a big boat which made it highly susceptible to wind and difficult to solo. I would say the double blade of a kayak gives a considerable advantage in boat control over the single blade of a canoe. As 420 can attest, handling a canoe on moving water takes some time to get proficient - and is great fun. Some sections of the river are much trickier. Some runs would require an upstream portage. There has to be good defined eddies to paddle upstream. About a 14' kayak with a straight keel line (but not a keel ridge) but still with some rocker and good round edges (tumble home) would be a usable compromise of speed and maneuverability.

Wow You can do wonders for yourself by choosing different internal dialogue.

At an Xmas party this weekend, a fellow remarked he'd heard that since the Harvie Passage opened, the fishing above the old weir improved. Anyone confirm or dispute this?

Every pic I've ever taken now looks like a crayon drawing.

Geologic processes will choke off the channel again faster than they imagine - the river will go where it wants. The floods create and abandon channels within a few days. Just downstream of the #24 bridge the river abandoned the main channel and cut off a shorter route in the 2005 flood. The old main channel is almost entirely abandoned in normal summer flow levels as of last year.

Man that looks like serious fun!